Yes, you heard correctly. This week I finally have a non alcoholic beer on the table.
After celebrating 3 years of #beersaturday and the first visit to our local brewery after the lockdown, I figured it's time to go a bit slower.
Non alcoholic beers don't have the best reputation. Some hate it because they don't get drunk, others don't like it because it just never really tastes like actual beer.
So, every beer lover probably encountered this type of 'beer' and has an opinion on it. Personally I rarely drink it because it offers less taste for the price of a regular beer. I do have a weakness for a refreshing lemonade though, so if our local beer dealer offers a box of expiring beer hop lemonade, I take unleaded beer over anything else. It contains b vitamins from the yeast and very little sugar compared to lemonade in addition to being isotonic. Perfect beverage on hot summer days.
While non alcoholics range from enjoyable to remotely related to beer, I always believed that crafting a brew that lacks it's main flavor carrier will never be equally successful as a regular beer.
While this might still be a fundamental problem of all 'light' products, I would say we've come very close.
For certain occasions one would not want to miss the fun side effects of alcohol, but a really good beer without the downside would me a massive game changer for many people.
I first heard about this beer a few weeks ago when I watched a Waldhaus online beer tasting. According to the brew master someone at the Weihenstephan lab finally managed to breed a yeast strain that is producing very little alcohol. I'm not sure how this is achieved in detail, but I guess it would be a top secret thingy of some sort, anyways. If no alcohol is produced there is no need for any type of filtration and therefore none of the aroma is lost. Sounds promising!
The tinfoil facts
With Waldhaus beers you will immediately notice the colorful aluminium foil they use to wrap their bottles with. Every type has it's own unique color. There are very few other breweries that do this and only one that I know of doesn't glue it on and makes it easily removable. Some people complain about the foil and I have to agree, it's quite annoying to chew on metal. There are some interesting benefits that I learned about, though.
Convenience: Any of their 18 beers can be spotted and identified from isles away in a split second. Perfect for the real thirsty ones.
Safety: Admittedly an unlikely scenario, but manipulating this beer is almost impossible. Also the bottleneck is protected from all the nasty stuff like other customer's corona hands.
Another fact about Waldhaus worth mentioning is their exclusive use of natural hops. No pellets, no extracts, for the most flavors possible.
Tasting
From the layout I expect this beer to be an attempt of makeing their red label sans alcohol. Let's see if it tastes similar.
It's appearance is hazy and of a very light color, an attribute that's common for Waldhaus beers. The head is short-lived with big bubbles and the almost none existing carbonation seem to be rising through syrup.
Holy fuck that lychee smell! Never have I witnessed so much lychee in a beer. It actually smells more like a lemonade than a beer.
On the palate it is rather watery and the lychee aroma is very dominant. In addition I can taste a little bit of raspberry. A very fruity beer indeed - almost like a lemonade. The carbonation level is very low and the alphas quite distant with very little bitterness. The mouthfeel is rather creamy and a little yeasty. I can also detect the slightest citrus flavors but might as well be wrong here.
Conclusion
For 90 cents/ 33 cl it's not the cheapest beverage, but nonetheless it is clearly one of the most interesting non alcoholics I've ever had. Very different from the usual flavors and a very surprising experience.
I'm really excited about the fruity aromas finally making their way into non alcoholic beers, even though there's still a significant gap to their alcoholic pendants.
On the other hand I see quite some room for improvement and can't wait to see what they come up with next. They are definitely up to something.
It seems like for a really good beer experience we will not do without alcohol, right now. In the world of non alcoholic beers this is definitely a 4/5 stars.
